


Ya Gotta Believe

by theworldunseen



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Baseball, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Gen, New York City, New York Mets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 22:16:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6677497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theworldunseen/pseuds/theworldunseen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson is in charge of acclimating a newly awakened Steve Rogers to 2012. When Steve wants to go to a Brooklyn Dodgers game, Coulson has some bad news for him. But he has a solution — the Mets.</p><p>Literally just the fluffiest baseball oneshot of nothing. Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-The Avengers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ya Gotta Believe

“I’d love to see a game at Ebbets Field.”

When Agent Phil Coulson, usually so unflappable, almost choked on his coffee, Steve Rogers knew something was wrong. They were in the S.H.I.E.L.D. canteen, eating breakfast before his daily briefings and trainings would begin and discussing what field trips — as Steve liked to call them — they would take in the city, in the year 2012. Sensing his misstep, he jumped to explain.

“I mean, the Dodgers just meant so much to me growing up in Brooklyn, that’s one of the big things I missed during the war,” he began to ramble. He stopped rambling when he realized Coulson looked like he had just killed Steve’s dog.

“I’m sorry Steve, but Ebbets Field was demolished in 1960.” Steve’s eyes widened.

“Ebbets Field? How could they demolish Ebbets Field? Where do the Dodgers play?”

A long pause. Oh no.

“Los Angeles.”

Steve Rogers was not so undignified as to spit out his orange juice in shock, but if he were, this is when he would have.

“It’s not funny to mess with a super soldier, that’s a cruel joke —”

“I wish I were kidding. They moved to L.A. in 1957.”

Steve studied the pile of bacon and eggs and tots — these tiny potato spheres had originally confused Steve, but now he loved them — on his plate, stabbing at it half-heartedly. After a moment, he asked, “Ok, but what about —”

“The Giants moved to San Francisco soon after.”

Steve smacked his fist on the table, sending a biomedical recruit’s cup of tea flying. (Of course, Captain America caught it before it spilled and apologized with a smile. She would exaggerate the nature of their interaction later when she recounted it to her friends, who traded Captain America stories that had little relation to the truth.)

“Listen, you’ve told me a lot of crazy things about modern America, things I never expected to live to see, could have never predicted. Great things — space travel, Barack Obama, the Internet, rap music, iPhones” — he pronounced it wrong, putting the emphasis on phone — “but how could they let this happen? Am I supposed to be a Yankees fan now? You’re telling me New York has one baseball team?”

But Coulson smirked. “No, there’s another team. And I think you’re going to like them.”

\---  
A few weeks later, Steve and Coulson boarded the 7 train at Times Square. Steve laughed at Coulson when he saw him that morning — jeans and a button down were apparently as casual as he could get. Steve had worn a blue tee shirt in an attempt to be spirited, but that attempt wasn’t working so far. It started when Steve had approached Times Square — bright lights, impossibly huge advertisements for products he didn’t understand, tourists pushing and shouting everywhere. How anyone without scientifically modified genetics could look at all those screens without developing a severe migraine, he didn’t know. 

The subway station itself provided a slight sensory relief, though it was no less crowded. Steve could feel Coulson’s discomfort with how quiet he is, but for the moment he enjoyed just a little self-pity. Coulson made a few attempts at small talk, but Steve quickly shut them down. When the train arrived, they sat together, a tight squeeze between the poles given Steve’s size. Coulson took two Mets hats from the bag in his hand, which Steve would have sworn wasn’t there a moment before. Spies, man.

“You have to look the part,” he said, putting his hat on and handing Steve his. Steve turned it over in his hand, eyeing the Fiftieth Anniversary patch.

“Fifty years of baseball in Queens, and I found out about it last month,” he said, a little sadly, before donning the hat. He looked good in blue, shocking no one.

“The royal blue is for the Dodgers, and the orange for the Giants,” Coulson said, with forced excitement. Steve smiled, both because this does comfort him just a little and because he finally started to feel bad for being so sulky. When he was rude to Coulson, who’d attested to being a Captain America fan his whole life, he felt like he was telling a kid Santa Claus isn’t real. 

At the next stop, Bryant Park, more Mets fans boarded the train, and Coulson and Steve rose, giving their seats to a mother with her daughter and son, all in Mets gear of their own. The little girl looked at Steve and touched her cap, which matched his, in a little salute, which the Captain returned. She grinned and he returned that too. Coulson smirked — Captain America, man. There was no way the girl could know, and yet.

Steve turned his attention back to Coulson. “Los Angeles, that’s the part I can get over. At first I thought maybe I’d like to go see the Dodgers play out there, but something about the whole idea of California rubs me the wrong way.”

“That might just be the most New York thing about you,” Coulson said, with a chuckle. “Who thought you’d have trouble fitting in 2012?”

“I mean, what good could even come out of there? It’s a dessert and some orange trees!”

“Actually,” Coulson said, switching to his teaching voice, “S.H.I.E.L.D. has had a California post since it was the S.S.R. Your friend Agent Carter actually spent quite a few years out there,” Coulson explained. Agent Carter. Peggy. Sometimes she felt like this wound that you thought would heal, and then someone would say her name, and there was the pain, fresh as it was on day one. And at S.H.I.E.L.D., someone was always saying her name — a portrait of her hung in the lobby. Had Peggy been an L.A. Dodgers fan? Had she thought of Steve when she went? 

Coulson must have seen Steve’s discomfort because instead of launching into one of his mini-history lectures, he dropped the subject. Instead they chatted about the expansions made to the subway in the last seventy years, how there was still no Second Avenue subway, the compromises Giuliani made to “clean up” New York. 

“It seems New York City was built on a lot of people’s pain,” Steve said, finally. Coulson couldn’t disagree.

“There’s a lot of joy too, though,” he said. “You’ll see.”

Soon the train zoomed past the site of the Stark Exposition, which Coulson pointed out, reminiscing about visiting with his parents as a kid and how different it was when it came back last year. This, of course, turned into a lecture about Tony Stark and how Coulson personally tried to recruit him but he was so self-absorbed and Steve smiled and laughed because it’s polite and he had nothing to add. He knew Howard Stark, liked Howard Stark, but couldn’t imagine him having a wife and a son, let alone a middle-aged son who built a giant tower in New York City with his name on the side. (Well, actually, he could believe that Howard’s son would be as brilliant and vain as his father.)

For reasons even he did not fully understand, this baseball game had him much sadder than he ought to be. Baseball, the Dodgers, meant so much to him — to him and to Bucky — and while it was a relief to know it’s still going seventy years later, how could it all have changed so much? Maybe — but before he could follow this train of thought, the train arrived, and the crowd pushed them forward.

“It sort of looks a little like Ebbets Field,” Steve said, skeptically, as they descended from the train station with the crowd and he got his first full look of Citi Field. It was brown, with big round windows surrounding the stadium. The main difference was that instead of Ebbets, it said Citi Field, the logo of some bank. Also, the light brown color made it look at once impermanent, like a child’s toy, and eternal, like it would be there still after a nuclear war.

“They wanted to pay homage to the past,” Coulson explained. “They only opened this place in 2009. The old one — Shea, named for the guy who brought the National League back to New York — is now the parking lot.” They passed by a giant apple emblazoned with a Mets logo inside a hat. 

“That’s the home run apple from the old stadium,” Coulson explained when he noticed Steve eyeing it. “It would pop up whenever they hit one. There’s a new one in there.” They stop for a moment to watch friends, families, couples pose for photos in front. “Want me to take your picture?” Coulson asked, holding up his phone. Steve laughed as they turned and walked toward the gate.

Security guards groped them for weapons, they passed through automated gates, the experience felt clinical and impersonal. More unsettling, perhaps, to Steve, is how everyone lined up to get searched, opened their bags, submited without a second thought. As if reading his mind, Coulson said, “Used to be easier to get in pre-9/11, but you know.”

Steve didn’t know, of course. This was a constant problem in his S.H.I.E.L.D. training, in his understanding about everything in 2012. He could read about what happened, he could talk to people about what happened (they were always reluctant, until they got started, and then their words would flow), but he could never really understand that day, the weeks and months after, the decisions that were made. If he could, a lot of things about 2012 could start to make sense. 

“Used to be cheaper too,” Steve said as they enter the stadium to be greeted by a statue of Jackie Robinson and a giant blue 42. He stood in awe, gazing upon the numbers, the people who pose nearby or bow their heads in reverence, who rise on the escalators, who sell commemorative programs. 

“Jackie —”

“I know who Jackie Robinson is,” Steve said, cutting him off. “The first time I watched a game I looked it up on my iPhone.” He pronounced iPhone correctly this time.

“I was getting tired of explaining things anyway. Grown man who doesn’t know who Jackie Robinson is,” Coulson muttered, slapping him on the back. They fall into a more comfortable silence as they start to make the climb up to their seats.

When they finally get there, way up in the nosebleeds, they plop down. “We don’t have a huge field trip budget,” Coulson said, apologizing, but Steve shrugged him off.

“This is perfect,” Steve said, looking around at the families and friends sitting around them, joking around, eating hot dogs. If everyone were dressed a bit more formally, and the music were just a little quieter, it could have been 1938. “Yankees games aren’t like this, are they?”

Before Coulson could respond, a man in front of them, a big guy in a even bigger sweatshirt, turned around and shouted, “Fuck the Yankees” in his thick Brooklyn accent. His friends cheered, and Coulson and Steve joined in, giving high fives.

The Mets played the Braves. It was only the second home game of the season. As the starting lineups were announced, Steve asked questions about the team. “Wait, they’ve only won the World Series twice?”

“It’s a sore subject around here,” Coulson said, gesturing to those around them. “Six years ago, we had a great shot. Could have gone better.”

“Where are you from Coulson?” Steve asked, startled by the “we.”

“Wisconsin,” he said, with a shrug. “I was born the year Shea Stadium opened, I was five when they won in 1969. That’s one of my earliest memories. The next year, I convinced a brunch of Brewers fans to name our little league team The Manitowoc Mets. I’ve always loved an underdog.” Steve nodded and leaned forward in his seat.

The Mets pitcher was a knuckleballer, R.A. Dickey, and he pitched like no one Steve had ever seen before. He was practically untouchable. In the bottom of the first, the third baseman, David Wright, hit a home run, and Steve got to watch that apple pop out of the home run hat, and everyone cheered and jumped up and down and what a beautiful, perfect moment it was. This was baseball, this was America, this was what Steve had fought for and died for — almost died for. 

They got hot dogs and beers. Steve ate ice cream covered in rainbow sprinkles out of a plastic baseball helmet, and Coulson got a fancy milkshake from a shack? (Steve wasn’t sure of the details.) When a little girl urged them to do the wave, they dutifully obliged, and chanted “Let’s Go Mets.” Steve learned a lot about Wisconsin in the 60s and 70s, and Coulson learned a lot about stickball. Steve was outraged when he learned about the designated hitter, which Coulson half-heartedly defended. Instead they talked about Jackie Robinson and Doc Gooden and Keith Hernandez and Mike Piazza, and, briefly, Derek Jeter. There were ads everywhere, but by the end of the game they didn’t bother Steve as much. They never spoke of spies or terrorists or alien technology. 

When the game ended, and the Mets won, and the knuckleballer got his first win of the season, and the speakers pumped in some loud, wonderful song Steve had never heard before, Steve caught himself crying. “Taking care of business,” the loud fans in front of them sang, dancing and clapping. There was a lot of joy in the world still.

That was the last game Steve would go to for a while. He didn’t know then that the knuckleballer would have a historic season, and win the Cy Young award. He didn’t know that the third baseman would earn the nickname Captain America himself in the World Baseball Classic the next spring. He didn’t know that in a month he would know Howard Stark’s son, that they would stop aliens from falling out of the sky, or that Phil Coulson would be dead soon, and then not dead, just like Steve himself. He didn’t know that two years later, when the Mets were finally back in the World Series, he would be searching the world for his best friend, who he’d thought lost. But he’d wear his Mets hat in New Orleans and Paris, in Beijing and Budapest. He’d hang a Mets pennant in his Dupont Circle apartment in Washington, D.C., thinking of Coulson when he did so.

They took the 7 train back to the city, with the boisterous, smiling Mets fans, cementing this day, those nine innings, as a holy, perfect, golden day. 

“It probably won’t be a good season for them,” Coulson said, almost a whisper on the train.

“I know,” Steve said. 

“They don’t have the depth, they can’t beat the Nationals.” Steve nodded.

“That’s what I like about them,” Steve said, after a moment. “They try anyway. They believe anyway.”

**Author's Note:**

> So one day I thought, "Wait, Steve is a Mets fan, right? He couldn't be a Yankees fan, right?" And so I wrote this.


End file.
